Most boring/exciting version of each stage by tournament?

[tns8597]

What tournaments do you think had the most boring Stages 1, 2, 3, or 4? Which do you think had the most exciting? Thought I'd change it up a bit from just worst or best (as some of those are pretty obvious, like Sasuke 29's Stage 2 being the worst, etc.)

Here are mine, starting with Stage 1...
Most boring = SASUKE 28. This was mainly because the course was just really bland with the majority of the course being recycled, several high-profile competitors just not being selected to compete, and the fact that the Navi spoiled the results so you just knew who was going to clear. You could also predict that the All-Stars were also going to fail Stage 1 hence their whole 'retirement' bs. Was an utter snooze-fest. 
Most exciting = would have to go with SASUKE 23. Brilliant editing, a good mix of shock fails (like Nagano's first Stage 1 run; they didn't just disqualify him as they probably would today), breakout runs from the Shin-Sedai, returning veterans, etc.

Stage 2:
Most boring = SASUKE 32. Couldn't decide between 32 and 6 (the only two tournaments to have a 100% clear rate). Went with 32 ultimately because the course was basically exactly the same as in 31 which was so underwhelming for a renewal, the whole thing only lasted about 10 minutes as basically everyone was fast-forwarded, no one came even close to timing out despite going slowly. At least in 6 the time limit was still pretty stringent which forced competitors to rush, and Takeda cut it super close.
Most exciting = I'm going with what I know will be a really unpopular opinion and say SASUKE 16. The reason I found it so compelling to watch was that say what you want about the Delta Bridge, it defo served as a good time waster and caused the whole stage to just have a much faster pace to it, there was a good balance of both expected and unexpected fails and clears, the Metal Spin earned its reputation, the editing was good and really maintained that excitement.

Stage 3:
Most boring = SASUKE 33. By far the most predictable and ultimately boring Stage 3 I've ever seen. Connecting the UCCH, VLK and Pipe Slider killed it for me; you knew that no matter who got to Stage 3, you knew that no one was going to clear that utterly unwarranted difficulty spike which just made everything so predictable and not worth watching. Also we just got the usual expected crowd in Stage 3, all of whom did as badly or worse than in 32, so overall a really underwhelming and unexciting stage to watch.
Most exciting = SASUKE 12. Had a strong mix of rookies, secondary players, and 5 All-Stars in Stage 3. A really good level of difficulty for the era which allowed for suspense as to who was going to clear (not like these days where its 99% going to be just Morimoto), great editing with music that kept up that level of excitement, several shock fails like Takeda and Akiyama balanced out by some unlikely clears from Asaoka and Bunpei, I could go on.

Stage 4:
Most boring = SASUKE 1. Was pretty hard to work out this one as Final Stage runs are never boring, but I had to go with SASUKE 1 as this was the only tournament where no one came close to clearing; after 5 seconds of every competitor's run there was no sense of suspense anymore as you could already tell they weren't going to make it.
Most exciting = SASUKE 24. Think this speaks for itself. We knew there'd be a Kanzen and everyone was expecting it to be Nagano, but he failed early in Stage 1. So we got 5 finalists and the Kanzen could've been any one of them; watched this live and I was on the absolute edge of my seat throughout the whole broadcast. Sasuke 12 comes a close second, only by the fact that we knew that no one would achieve Kanzen which somewhat spoiled Nagano's near miss.

[ChiBiJKT48]

Boring:
First Stage= SASUKE 26. Terrible Editing make me want to skip it. Feel so bored and eventually, the results didn't help either.
Second Stage= SASUKE 10. Same reason, terrible Editing. You manage to digest three competitors. Not cool.
Third Stage= SASUKE 25. You know the results since the obstacles revealed, even if you watch it the first time and you never know this show, because of how they only introduce the obstacles until Ultimate Cliffhanger only.
Final Stage= SASUKE 27. Terrible Final Stage set-up with spoiled results. Sorry, it just killed the drama.

Exciting:
First Stage= SASUKE 6. The rage of Jump Hang make me wondering who can pass this obstacle. Well, just a few in the end.
Second Stage= SASUKE 18. A perfect killer in form of Salmon Ladder and a time waster in form of Net Bridge. The only wrong? Lenient Time Limit, which eventually used well.
Third Stage= SASUKE 9. You keep watching all of them, because results weren't blantantly spoiled. Especially Yamamoto's fail, which is surprising because he was Last Man Standing and he fell that way.
Final Stage= SASUKE 4. It wasn't really spoiled in the Opening, because all you can see is Akiyama climbing the rope. They did tell you **** like "It is the ultimate climax", but for us who wasn't fluent in Japanese, we just ignore it. And I don't think no one had idea that Climax= Kanzenseiha at that time. And when Akiyama blast through the rope? Wow. Wow.

[tns8597]

May I ask why you chose Sasuke 6 instead of 5? Surely Sasuke 5 had the added excitement of the course being new, fresh, and a MASSIVE difficulty increase over 4 (I mean 37 clears vs 3 speaks for itself).

Also yeah I forgot about Sasuke 26; that’s still my worst tournament of all time which I’m sure I’ve mentioned several times. I think 28’s Stage 1 was more boring for me because of the lack of new obstacles apart from the Jump Hang Kai and even that was a refresh. Also unlike 26, the competitor list was probably the most sparse in terms of familiar faces that it’s been in years. Okuyama, Kongu, and all of the breakout Americans just didn’t compete. 26 edges it for WORST Stage 1 due to the awful editing but some unexpected clears from people like Naoki Iketani, less predictability/spoiling of results, more shock fails, and most of the big names competing, fundamentally make it less boring for me than 28.

And yeah you’re right about 25; I just found it exciting seeing how the competitors actually fared on a brand new course. 33 for me was more of the same but just pointlessly harder which ultimately made it more disappointing and boring to watch.

[SRW]

Stage 1 Exciting 18 Because of it being all new such a change from before 13 was dope too.
Boring 32 seriously there was nothing exciting about it

Stage 2 Exciting 19 the prospect of history being made
Boring honestly 32 to 36

Stage 3 Exciting 17 and 23 for me
Boring 33 no chance in hell no green bar to rest before the pipe slider either

Final Exciting 17 24 and honestly in a way 38 just to see the masterclass lol
Boring 7 As never thought Shingo had a chance sadly and 27 for being farcibly easy.

[azn]

Boring:
First - 28 or 29, tbh Their are probably worse stages, but I chose these cause their was no change to this stage, especially after a renewal.

Second - 32, I'm giving SK6 a break because it was slightly enjoyable to watch all the close clears, not to mention Takeda's run with that incredible ending of his. SK32 literally felt like nothing, especially after a renewal, like the opposite to speed. 18 was also super close because the obstacles after the salmon ladder were just terrible (except for the metal spin), the net bridge was criminally easy and the Shoulder Walk replacing the Wall Lift felt criminal too. It was a terrible version of VIKING's Galleon, which was actually good and placed in the right spot.

Third - 33, It's worse considering who was Last man standing but that unmodified Flying Bar was just terrible, not to mention the lack of resting area. I hate that Asa failed the way he did as this would've been his last run. Gonna mention the SK1 third stage also, flawed thanks to the pole bridge and while the 3rd stage is meant to be taken slowly unless you really know what your doing, the lack of pipe slider at the end kind of made it a snooze fest, with all three obstacles having no sense of drama and just incredibly slow. It is however the first iteration so I'll give it some slack

Final - 27, one of the bigger cop outs of the show. Instead of something epic, we got a rope climb. (also regarding SK1, Omori was actually pretty close)

Exciting:
First - 11, it wasn't the best obstacle wise, but seeing the people that cleared was just so satisfying. Nagano, Takeda, and Shingo redeeming themselves and seeing Akiyama finally clear were all amazing. Also Shinji Kobayashi cleared, considering he's my favorite competitor that's also a plus

Second - 5 or 11, SK5 was a one man show, and that competitors 3 stage run is probably one of my favorites, so of course seeing Shingo clear the way he did was exciting, but also seeing Yamada fail on the spider walk was the first of many shock fails that no one expected. Also I have a sweet spot for 11 as it was it's first tournament, but seeing the usually blue course go red was visually appealing, and while some guys were digested, the runs we got were decent to exciting, especially Kobayashi and Akiyama's runs

Third - 23 or 24, the shin era third stage between SK21-24 was my favorite version of the third stage in general, and both of the tournaments had exciting third stage runs that I couldn't really decide on what

Final - 8, cause of Kane.

[wrestlingfan55]

Stage 1:
• Boring; Sasuke 34. You can choose anything from 29-38, but 34 is the least memorable for me, outside of Yuuji's run.

• Exciting: Sasuke 23: Exciting results, with both New Stars and, more importantly, the All-Stars. Nagano's redo was arguably the most dramatic ending to Stage 1, ever;

Stage 2:
• Boring: Sasuke 32. Again, anything from 28-37 is a valid answer;

• Exciting: Sasuke 27. Great mix of competitors and a challenging stage. Best stage of that particular tournament, also;

Stage 3:
• Boring: Sasuke 33. Unsurprisingly, anything from 28 onwards is valid;

• Exciting: Sasuke 23: Excitement from start to finish, with the All-Stars having their last great run together, as well as the emotion of Kanno after he cleared (remember the background music?);

Stage 4:
• Boring: Sasuke 27. Hard to choose, as this stage is almost always exciting;

• Exciting: Sasuke 17. All the emotion from start to finish. The special video package before Nagano's run is bittersweet- it was done so poignantly, yet it also gave the strongest hint of what was about to happen. A close second is Sasuke 8 for the drama.

[Zach Smith]

Stage 1
Boring: 34
Exciting: 5
Stage 2
Boring: 19
Exciting: 38
Stage 3
Boring: 20
Exciting: 12
Stage 4
Boring: 7
Exciting: 17 or 38

[tns8597]

Have to disagree with anyone who says 38 was the most exciting Final Stage, given that the result was spoiled by the Navi, and even if it wasn't we could've seen the result from a mile away. Morimoto being the only Finalist once again, achieving Kanzen after a near miss in 36 having trained for the Final Stage aggressively; who would've thought!?

Both 36 and 37 were way more exciting due to the suspense brought about by the live Final, the latter also because we got two 'out of nowhere' competitors suddenly reaching the Final including a foreign rookie. 24 was more exciting because even though a victory had been teased it could've been any one of 5 competitors; even 17 was less predictable given that competitors like Bunpei also had a real shot of Kanzenseiha. Whereas I think we can all agree that the current Stages 3 and 4 play way too much to Morimoto's advantage, which just led to pretty boring results which sapped any sense of excitement I had after Tada failed.

Obvs this is just my opinion; I just feel like people almost always associate a Total Victory with a tournament or stage being exciting to watch, even if that victory was completely spoiled and by far the most predictable of any victory we've seen. A lot of us just lost the desire to watch after Stage 3 ended, because we knew how it was going to go. 

[ChiBiJKT48]

Jan 11, 2021 15:50:51 GMT -5 tns8597 said:

May I ask why you chose Sasuke 6 instead of 5? Surely Sasuke 5 had the added excitement of the course being new, fresh, and a MASSIVE difficulty increase over 4 (I mean 37 clears vs 3 speaks for itself).

Well, because in SASUKE 5, it was expected. It was the first ever renewal after all, so you know there will be massacre. And, yes, 97 failures show you that.

But, nobody expect SASUKE 6 to be similar. You thought after such massacre, competitors would do better. Nope, it almost didn't happen after 82 runs. Mind you, even SASUKE 5 got their first Clear after 74 runs. Then Yamamoto, the best competitor in previous tournament, suddenly wiped out early. Oh, interesting. So who will carry the tournament? Oh, right, we still got Akiyama, the Grand Champion, returning, so of course he can save this tournament, right? No, Sir. He himself couldn't repeat his previous performance.

Then during the First Stage, we keeping asking if Jump Hang can be beaten. 51 failures are no joke here. The excitement got to you and whenever a competitor can reach the Jump Hang, you would be asking "Can he/she clear this?" to yourself. If they don't, you get more curious as how to beat it. If they do, can they finish the course? Not all do that, make it more exciting.

This is one of few reasons SASUKE 6's First Stage is more interesting than SASUKE 5. Again, the Openings really help, because not much is spoiled. This is different with SASUKE 5, because the way they promote the obstacles, you KNOW it will be attempted. Especially during the Third Stage. Furutachi mentioning Body Prop and Cliffhanger Dansa as new obstacles and went to say Yamamoto's shoulder might make him fail the obstacles, but then before switching to advertisements, we saw that Yamamoto was seen attempting Cliffhanger Dansa *about to do transition to third ledge*, so when we get to Third Stage and see Body Prop was the second obstacle, we know he will clear the obstacle.

[tns8597]

I never saw the SASUKE 5 intro, but those damn intros really give way too much information away.

It's almost like they assume that everyone watching either has the memory of a goldfish or isn't a fan of SASUKE (and even if they're not they'll still likely be able to recognise a competitor from the intro based on their outfit). If you are a fan of SASUKE, you'll easily be able to tell who's being 'teased' on Stages 2 and 3. I just don't get the point of them spoiling so much in these teasers. They don't do it so much anymore but they have the Navis to account for that (SASUKE 28-30 were the worst in terms of spoiling results)

[SRW]

38 final stage was exciting to see how easily Yusuke will smash it! Plus the stage itself is really a cool visual spectacle this is the final what should have been after 24 to be honest.